Market Leaves Its Taste Back on the Ranch

The sense of abundance is one of the key pleasures of shopping at the great souks and markets of the world. Hills of jewel-colored spices, tubs of brine-soaked mysteries, platters of sweetmeats meet a harvest of fruits and legumes. There is something dizzying about standing in the middle of so much food.

While there seems to be none of the intrigue, cacophony and haggling over prices that one finds close to the Casbah, the Irvine Ranch Farmers Market has always struck me as an inviting place to shop. The abundance, variety and general high-pitched atmosphere make it feel like a carnival for food.

Visiting the takeout department at the Beverly Center branch a couple of weeks ago and following that up a few days later with a trip to the new Bel-Air store, my visual appetite was tantalized (and my gustatory one whetted) by the array of selections displayed in case after case. The Beverly Center shop offers about 80 dishes; at Bel-Air, there were about 35 different hot-and-cold things to go.

All that glistens is not gold: Except for a handful of dishes, nothing tasted as good as it looked.

Let’s start with that handful of delicious things: Poached salmon was perfect--light, easily flaked and sweet. It sells for $19.95 a pound, and I think it’s worth the price. The large, cold, ever-so-gently marinated shrimp are everything shrimp should be. (They are also a heady $23.95 a pound. But just think how much Beluga would cost.) Linguine with shrimp, at a much more modest $8.95 per pound, is first-rate and peppery, fully studded with slivers of full-size shrimp. Another winner is the marinated Japanese eggplant: oily and smoky and interesting. The rice pudding is homey, properly thick, creamy and loaded with raisins and cinnamon.

The three chicken salads tasted were composed of thick white meat chunks. Certainly acceptable--one with red onions, green peppers and chives, another with sesame oil, soy sauce and crunchy snow peas and green beans, the creamy third laced with coarse mustard and orange rind (each $8.50 per pound)--I mean you wouldn’t feel unhappy if you happened to eat them for lunch. It’s clear that the Irvine Ranch raw materials are fine. (The same meats, fish and produce sold in the store are used.) Given that, it’s disappointing how monochromatic so much turns out to be.

The rigatoni Bolognese was boring. So was chicken with red peppers. Wild rice and barley salad was dull, shrimp frittata dull. Chicken teriyaki was no better.

The chicken curry is a pale version of curry, the “turkey paradise” spa salad so bland that I’d rather fast. Fried rice with peas and tough meat tasted like leftovers. Ravioli pesto was so mild it seemed to be made of pureed broccoli. A slice of stuffed veal roast was yet another in the pretty-but-tasteless category. Sushi prepared on-the-spot is sushi nondescript. I could go on.

There are lots of people buying the victuals and presumably consuming them. I was told that the Beverly Center store serves about 600 people at lunch alone each day. But is that any reason why parsley seems to be the most exciting herb? Or why there isn’t a truly stellar bakery? With all the resources behind it, the Irvine Ranch Farmers Market takeout section should taste, as well as look, like one of the great markets--if not of the world, then at least around town.

There are 12 markets in the Irvine Ranch chain. The Beverly Center branch does the cooking for all of the Los Angeles-area stores, which include those in Woodland Hills, Northridge and Bel-Air.

Irvine Ranch Farmers Market, Beverly Center, Los Angeles, (213) 657-1931. Visa, MasterCard and checks accepted. Validated parking. Also 640 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Bel-Air, (213) 471-6858; 6401 Canoga Ave., Woodland Hills, (818) 704-0485; 19524 Nordhoff St., Northridge, (818) 886-3701.